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TAG FOR “CGI”Cartoon Brew's home for up-to-the-minute, unedited announcements and press releases direct from industry sources.
January 18, 2010 7:51 am
An evocative and spare exercise in computer animation by David OReilly and Jon Klassen, who previously collaborated on the U2 music video “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight”. The video is intended to be viewed as a loop, and contains a ‘making of’ portion at the end. It’s a revelation seeing how elegantly Klassen’s design-heavy illustrations work can be translated into CG imagery. I’d love to see these guys collaborate on something more substantial in this style. 4 Comments » posted in CGI, Jon Klassen 
January 16, 2010 3:00 pm
This is one of the most beautiful short films of the year. Everything you see is CG except for the photographer (shot on greenscreen), pigeons, timelapsed growing flowers, the flying airplane and sky backgrounds. Stunning realism, artfully done. (Thanks, Gibbs Rainock) 8 Comments » posted in CGI, Experimental, Shorts
January 16, 2010 5:03 am
An animated short directed by Sam Stephens from Humble’s in-house directing collaborative Hydra. The film combines photography of decomposing fruit with CG characters on top. In the words of the filmmaker, Homunculus is:
(Thanks, Mike Johnson) 3 Comments » posted in CGI, Shorts
January 15, 2010 12:05 pm
The country of Georgia now has a homegrown yellow cartoon family of their own—The Samsonadzes. If the clip above doesn’t convince you of the inspiration for these characters, check out the animated opening at the beginning of this video in the Guardian. The creator of the series, Shalva Ramishvili, says in that video:
(Thanks, Mike Grimshaw) 16 Comments » posted in Bad Ideas, CGI
January 14, 2010 11:23 am
This is a 1985 student film directed by Chris Wedge, who, of course, went on to become the creative head of Blue Sky and direct Ice Age. To give it a bit of historical context, it falls between The Adventures of André and Wally B. and Luxo Jr. From the YouTube description: “Though visually sparse, the film marks a significant turning point in computer animation, both for eschewing the usual chrome-and-perfect-geometric-shapes of the era, and for extensively applying traditional animation techniques — follow-through, squash-and-stretch, etc.” The video is part of the Vintage CG Channel on YouTube which is filled with rare examples of early computer animation. It’s still hard to wrap my head around just how far CGI has advanced in a few decades. 18 Comments » posted in CGI, Classic
January 13, 2010 1:00 pm
In 2004, CG animation studio Threshold Entertainment and Motion Picture Magic, a product placement company in Encino, teamed up to produce a food version of Toy Story titled Foodfight. Announced with great fanfare, Foodfight would team 80 name-brand products and their associated characters, including Mr. Clean, Cap’n Crunch, Charlie the Tuna, the Engergizer Bunny and the Brawny paper towel man, in an adventure set in a supermarket city – and a voice cast including Charlie Sheen, Eva Longoria, Chris Kattan and Christopher Lloyd. The last time we reported any news on the film was in 2007, when Lionsgate supposedly picked up the film for release. I’d completely forgotten about the project until Brew reader Kurtis Findlay sent me this pic of merchandising (photo above) he found while he was Christmas shopping. Kurtis says, “I have to say that the characters look far better in 2D than they do in 3D! Do you think the manufacturer of this product got sick of all of them sitting in their warehouse and just released them without the movie tie-in?” Probably. And one look at the characters tells me this film might have better luck remaining unseen and on the shelf. 36 Comments » posted in CGI, Feature Film, Foodfight!
January 11, 2010 2:39 pm
I was thinking today, If Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel has enough animation in it to be eligible for Best Animated Oscar, and A Christmas Carol is considered animation, then Avatar most definitely qualifies as an animated film too. The only reason Avatar isn’t on the list of animation Oscar contenders is because the studio didn’t want it to languish in the “animation ghetto.” That doesn’t change the fact, however, that it’s an animated film and should be acknowledged as such. This spurred me to do some research on the subject, and I discovered I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about this. Brad Brevet did an excellent in-depth report on the subject at Rope of Silicon where he discusses the blurry line between visual effects and animation and how it leads to a double standard at awards time:
There are serious problems at the Academy if they consider A Christmas Carol to be both animation and vfx, Avatar only vfx, and Up only animation. As animation matures and evolves as an art form, it is vital for those of us within the industry to recognize it in all its many forms, and not allow organizations like the Academy to make arbitrary value judgments about different forms of animation. 47 Comments » posted in CGI, Ideas/Commentary, James Cameron
January 10, 2010 6:15 pm
The trailer for an upcoming German CG feature, Die Konferenz der Tiere, co-directed by Reinhard Klooss and Holger Tappe at Constantin Film: It’s based on a 1949 children’s book by Erich Kästner that took an Animal Farm-esque approach to Germany’s East-West conflict. The book was previously adapted into an animated feature in 1969. A clip from that earlier film can be viewed on YouTube. Which version would you rather watch? |
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